Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Which Emotion Drives Your Decisions

Before I turn on the news or read the newspaper or a news magazine, I almost have to recite a key principle: do I want to live in fear or faith? Which emotion will drive my decisions and reaction to the news around me?

You don't have to go far to find the dismal news. Last week I learned one news source that a projected 400 bookstores will close this year which is a 500% increase over the numbers from 2008. As much as I love bookstores, this statistic bothers me. Yet, I also understand that over 60% of books are sold outside of the bookstore.

Yes, listening to the world, it is easy to live in paralyzing fear and not the life of faith. My friend Max Lucado has recently released a new book with the simple title, Fearless. In the chapter called, "I'm sinking fast," Max writes, "Courage is always a possibility. C. S. Lewis wrote a great paragraph on this thought:

"Faith . . . is the art of holding on to things your reason has once
accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. I know that by experience. Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. . . . That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods “where they get off,” you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion."

Each day we face challenges with our writing and our work in publishing. I've got my share of these daily challenges and you do as well to get your work into the marketplace and reach the greatest number of people with those words.

What steps are you taking to feed your faith and starve your fears? If you haven't read Fearless, I highly recommend the book. It's straightforward reading that will touch your heart and give you hope.